


Hours until sunrise

by Kirkwallgirl



Series: Freckles and Feathers [6]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Character Death, Custom Hawke, Gen, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Post-Canon, Tearjerker, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:36:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7545325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirkwallgirl/pseuds/Kirkwallgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even heroes can’t live forever, but at least they can make their peace with death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hours until sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Jay is my Jayden Hawke.
> 
> I debated posting this ficlet here, but ended up posting it in the end. This one's not my usual fluff, not by a long shot, but the thought of it wouldn't leave me alone at the time. Read the tags and read them well - ye've been warned. *hands out tissues*
> 
> If it's any consolation, they had a good run of their life, far better and longer than they ever thought. :)
> 
> Oh and image by myself. ^u^

Jay left quietly with the first snowfall of the season. Anders stayed awake beside him the entire night, kept awake by some healer’s precognition, holding his hand and listening to him breathe and watching expressions shift on his sleeping face. Jay drifted to the surface a couple of times in the night, and Anders brushed the silver hair out of his face and smiled, telling him to go back to sleep and have sweet dreams. When snow started drifting from the sky, Jay slipped away and Anders let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. He snuggled tightly up to Jay and pressed his face against the chest that had fallen still. It was still hours until sunrise.

The end had snuck on them with the turn of summer into fall - like a peat fire it had spread under the mosses and peats of everyday life undetected until it broke into flame, and then it had been too late already. The signs had been there for a while already when they knew to look back to find them, but mostly the realization had came as a rude reminder of how easy it was to blame all manner or aches and discomforts on old age. The weight loss they’d attributed to a busy summer on the farm - the other who had lived on their farm had left the previous fall, so this summer and fall they’d had to survive on their own, and it had definitely taken its toll on the both of them. The backaches and stomach pain they’d paid little mind at first as well because Jay had always had his fair share of those, and Anders had been having increasing trouble with his own back, too. They’d treated them with foxmint and elfroot, and the gentle heat of the sauna.

But then the fires had started smoking, and sparking their suspicions. The belly aches had quickly gotten worse, and Jay had started losing his appetite, and they’d had to admit that something was definitely wrong. And then they’d found the lump under his arm.

 _Gone to our Calling_ , they’d written to their closest friends and family before they left their little farm and headed for the Deep Roads. _Remember us well, and try to remember all the good times we had. We had a good run of it, and longer than we ever dared hope. - Jay and Anders._ They’d left too soon to see if anyone tried to write them back, and that was probably for the best. They hadn’t wanted anyone to try and follow or stop them.

They hadn’t made it to the Deep Roads like they had hoped - Jay’s health had failed too fast, and so finally, a week away from their destination, they had stopped running from death and waited.

They’d made their peace with it, Anders pondered, watching the snow accumulate on the ground outside their little tent and the dark of the night turn into the grey of a cloudy morning. Neither of them had really ever expected to live this long, or this well. _Thirty years of relative peace_. That’s what they’d had, and they’d made the most of it, and helped as many as they could, and that was what mattered. When they’d known it was their time to go, they hadn’t felt like they were leaving without having made a difference, that they hadn’t done enough, or loved enough, or laughed enough. They’d made their peace with death.

After sunrise, Anders gathered what remained of his strength, kissed Jay on the brow one last time, packed what he could easily carry, and piled what he couldn’t or didn’t want to carry on Jay. As a final after-though, he plucked a feather from his shoulders and wrapped Jay’s fingers around it before crawling out of the tent. He turned his attention inwards to Justice for the spirit’s certainty and strength, and only then could he turn back to face the tent and summon balls of fire into his shaking hands.

“Goodbye, love,” he said, and his voice boomed with Justice’s voice as well, and his skin crackled faintly with the blue fire of the Fade for a moment when the spirit paid his final respects.

He sat a long time in the snow watching the tent burn and collapse into embers, and finally ashes, the heat of the fire first almost scorching his face and then fading until all he could feel was the cold and the little snowflakes still dancing from the sky and landing on his cheeks. Only when the ashes were cold enough for the snowfall to start covering them did he finally leave the little clearing with unsteady feet and almost nothing to carry.

That night, pushing forward through the snow despite his achy legs and back, he listened to the murmuring of the Taint in his blood with Justice simmering right under the surface and keeping him company - the murmurs Justice had kept from growing louder and louder for such a long time - and together they let go, stopped pushing away the inevitable, and went for the Calling for real. The song in their blood grew until it felt like it was pulling at their bones.

“Goodbye, Justice,” Anders muttered, and closed his eyes.  _I’ll say it now, so I don’t have to again. Thank you for everything._ There were no real words to answer him, just a reassuring rush of certainty and affection, and his step grew a little lighter. It was still hours until sunrise.

* * *

Years after Jay and Anders just disappeared into the wilderness, people in the foothills of the Fereldan Frostbacks would still spoke fondly of the two lovely old apostates out in the forest like they were still there. The stories were passed down from generation to generation, and eventually became legend, a cherished part of the local folklore.


End file.
